We need time to fix Ghana, says Health Minister
The Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu has refuted claims that the Akufo-Addo government is not working to fix the country’s economy.
Speaking at a press conference in Accra on Wednesday (9 February), Agyeman-Manu said “we will fix the country but we need time to deal with the effects COVID-19 has on our economy.”
Effect of lockdowns
“Productivity was impacted, cash flow impacted, trading that brings us a lot of revenue in our country through the ports were eventually stopped. We couldn’t get imports from China because of lockdowns and factory closures, so trade charges started escalating and when trade charges go up we are importing inflation and definitely we will feel our country is accumulating hardships,” the health minister explained.
According to him, COVID-19 had a major toll on Ghana’s economy, calling on Ghanaians to exercise restraint as the government works to fix it.
“Tourism suffered the most, that is part of the impact of COVID on our economy, but we have stopped evaluating this and we’ve gone ahead to form a movement – Fix the Country. We will fix the country but we need time,” Agyeman-Manu said.
Call to vaccinate
Agyeman-Manu reiterated calls on the general public to inoculate against COVID-19 as part of measures adopted by the government to deal with the pandemic which will in turn bring the economy back on track.
“When we get ourselves vaccinated, it will give us confidence to be able to get people back to work fully and see how productivity will move and see how our economy will grow to get yourselves back on track,” he said.
In spite of the challenges, however, he said Ghana is one of the countries that successfully managed the pandemic effectively, this he said is evident by the success chalked in other areas in the health sector.
“I won’t say the previous government didn’t do well, they tried but they didn’t get far. We are doing better even in times of COVID. You can see mortality reducing even in the midst of COVID and that is a success story so despite the fact that we were struggling we still had a cohort of workers doing their work,” Agyeman-Manu stated.
